Tag Archives: microsoft

Windows 8 has served over 60 million licenses within months of its launch.But one of the executive’s of Samsung which is one of the most important hardware partner for Windows feels ,Windows 8 is no better than Vista!

As reported earlier by Korea Times Samsung’s head of Memory chip business,Jun Dong Soo,who recently spoke to the reporters said that,”The global PC industry is steadily shrinking despite the launch of Windows 8,” he said. “I think the Windows 8 system is no better than the previous Windows Vista platform.”

He added to it by saying that the Surface also had a lackluster start as far as the number of sales goes,mostly due to the less competitive Windows Platform.

It’s been 4 months since the launch of the Windows 8/RT operating system and Microsoft wants to celebrate the 4 month anniversary of their newest operating system in style.

Microsoft recently announced the Windows 8 Story contest .If you have been using a licensed Windows 8 operating system and live in the United States ,You can bag a free Surface Pro or can win a trip to March Madness and many other goodies.

All you need to do is to create a video,sharing your experience with Windows 8 and why do you love to use it,then visit the Facebook Contest Pageand then click the “Enter Contest” button to upload your entry for the contest.After which you can spread the word and ask your family and friends to vote for your video and grab a chance to win awesome prizes.

The contest ends on 22nd of March and the Judging will end on 31st of March.Checkout the Complete Rules and Regulations of the Contest Here.

It’s been a Mixed bag as far as the Windows RT platform goes.Ever since its launch last quarter.Some have praised the device for its Energy efficiency while many have raised questions about its application support with no support for the legacy apps.

There were a few devices from Lenovo,Samsung,Asus,Dell and Microsoft,but none of them revealed the number of sales of the Windows RT devices.

Recently Microsoft CFO Tami Reller was interviewed by Bloomberg.Speaking to Bloomberg Reller indicated that there won’t be any new Windows RT based devices this Spring.She said that Microsoft wants to take time to concentrate on bringing more devices of the existing Windows RT tablets in the market before bringing any New models in market.

Acer who is one of the Windows 8 partners for Microsoft have already delayed their plans for Windows RT devices due to the concerns over the future of the platform.Quite recently Samsung who have released their Ativ Tab based on Windows RT decided not to release this tablet in the United States raising more concerns over the future of Windows RT.So unless we see any Dramatical changes in the sales of the platform we won’t be seeing a new device in near future.

Microsoft Recently announced their earnings for the last quarter(Q4 2012) with a record number of $21.46 billion with a nett profit of $6.38 billion,a tad bit lesser than the profits for the same quarter last year(Q4 2011) which netted $6.62 billion.

These numbers are courtesy the Windows 8,Windows Phone 8 and the Surface tablet launch last quarter.Though they didn’t share any specific details about how many Windows 8 devices have been sold,they mentioned about the Windows Division earnings for the last quarter reaching $5.9 billion which is up 24% For the same quarter a year ago,might give us an indication of where the things are going for Windows 8 and the devices,as we already know that Windows 8 has sold over 60 million licenses till date courtesy the Lucrative upgrade offer from Microsoft.

With their popular Office suite and Surface Pro nearing the release dates we could see even larger profit numbers by the next quarter earnings announcement.

It seems like they have started Giving away the Surface RT to the Employees,as reported earlier by ZDNet as few of the Employees started posting pictures of their Free Surface RT tablets on Twitter.According to ZDNet initial rollout Will be in 12 countries including United States, Canada,UK, Germany, France, China, Australia, Hong Kong, Austria, Ireland, Puerto Rico and New Zealand while the rest of the Offices would get their devices in the second phase of the rollout.
So it s early Christmas gift to the Employees from Microsoft.Earlier this fall the free Windows Phone 8 devices were distributed amongst the full time employees.

Over the past few days,we have been hearing about low Surface Sales due to the Distribution strategy of Microsoft.

But now it seems according to recent reports from Paul Thurrottsuggests that according to his most trusted sources,that Microsoft could push the Surface RT devices through Non-Microsoft Retail channels sooner rather than later in countries other than the United States,Canada and Puerto Rico,but no specific mention of the countries.
In the second phase of the rollout which starts off with the Surface Pro devices running Windows 8 which would start in January 2013,the software giant will include retailers like Staples,BestBuy.Though there is no official word on the rollout strategy as the company doesn’t comment or rumors and speculations,so we would have to wait for an official word on that front.

Microsoft’s Surface Tablet has been the best kept secret.There wasn’t a clue of such a thing is in the works by the software giant until a couple of days before the official reveal a few months ago.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case with their next Big(or Small) thing in the tablet market.TheVergereports from sources familiar to the plan that the software giant is working on a 7″ gaming tablet under their popular Xbox Division the “Xbox Surface”.

The tablet specifications are in accordance with the rumored 7″ tablet which were floating around the web Before the surface event.The tablet would probably feature a custom ARM or an unannounced Intel based SoC and it won’t be running on Windows 8 but a custom Windows Kernel since the prime focus of the device is gaming.So don’t expect much on the apps Front other than basic tablet functions and messaging.

Acer is one of the hardware partners of Microsoft with their Windows 8 and Windows RT operating system.But ever since the Surface announcement from Microsoft and their entry in the hardware business Acer is unhappy about the Software giants entry in the hardware market.

Surface RT was launched last week along with the public release of Windows 8 and Windows RT and the tablet has had a mix bag as far as the reviews are concerned and because of that Acer is still reluctant about releasing their Windows RT based devices.

“Originally we had a very aggressive plan to come out very early next year but because of Surface, our R&D development doesn’t stop, but we are much more cautious,” he further added, “Originally our plan was Q1, but now I don’t think it will be earlier than Q2″.

So basicallly Acer’s playing the waiting game and wants to observe how the Surface RT fares at the market and then decide about their own Windows RT tablet plans accordingly.So if you are waiting for a Windows RT device from Acer you miht have to wait a few months more before they decide to launch their RT products.

Acer has already announced the iconia w510 and W700 Windows 8 based tablets,with the w510 being the cheapest Windows 8 tablet priced at $499.

Now Microsoft has officially revealed the complete Surface RT tablet specifications and pricing details.As we already know that the 32 GB model without the touch cover would start at $499 ($599 for the touch cover based version) and the 64 GB version would cost $699 including the touch cover,the preorders starts from today.

We now also know the other hardware specifications of the surface tablet.Here’s the list of specifications for Surface RT tablet.

So now it confirms that the lowest priced model of Surface which features a 32GB of storage would cost $100 less than the official pricing for the ipad with same storage capacity and on the plus side the surface bundles in the Office 2013 RT edition Preview which is freely upgradable to a full version once Office hits public release.

With the other Windows RT based tablets priced on a higher side we can expect that to convert in some good market share for the Microsoft Surface tablets being a lot cheaper than its brothers.
Checkout the Press Release For More Details.

All the tech enthusiasts and Microsoft Fanboys have been speculating the Surface Tablet pricing which is slated for release on 26th October.

But it seems that,Microsoft has accidently revealed the pricing for the Surface RT tablets on their official Microsoft Store,with the 32GB version of Surface costing $499 without the Touch Cover,while the same version with the touch cover priced at $599.The higher storage version with 64GB of storage is priced at $699 which included the touch cover.

If you plan to buy the cover separately it would cost you $119.99 for the Touch Cover and $119.99 for the Type Cover. The touch covers seems to be available in various colour choices like black,white,red,blue and pink while the Type Cover in a single Black colour choice.

Though the page has been pulled offline now,might be because it was accidentally published prematurely before the actual date or there might be a slight chance of a PR stunt with giving the users a glimpse of the price range and later on modifying the pricing at a lower price point.We never know!

Anyways,we will definitely see the official pricing in coming days as we are less than 10 days away from the official release of the devices.